Game 18 vs. Nashville: Pavelec and Entries

The Jets were finally able to slay the “monster” that was Carter Hutton Friday night against the Preds, finally getting a win against the new Division rival. The power play was still terrible, but Pavelec was excellent as the team put fans on the good side of blowing a team out.

Zone Entries

5 vs 5

Player

# of successful entries

Shots (From Entries)

Shots/Entry

Controlled Entries

Shots (Controlled Entries)

% With Control

Failed entries

2

Pardy

0

0

N/A

0

0

N/A

0

7

Ellerby

1

1

1.00

0

0

0%

0

9

Kane

7

3

0.43

4

1

57%

0

12

Jokinen

5

2

0.40

2

1

40%

0

15

Halischuk

3

0

0.00

1

0

33%

0

16

Ladd

5

5

1.00

2

2

40%

0

17

Wright

4

1

0.25

1

1

25%

0

18

Little

0

0

N/A

0

0

N/A

1

22

Thorburn

2

1

0.50

1

1

50%

0

24

Clitsome

1

0

0.00

0

0

0%

1

26

Wheeler

5

1

0.20

3

1

60%

0

27

Tangradi

4

2

0.50

1

1

25%

0

33

Byfuglien

5

4

0.80

3

3

60%

0

39

Enstrom

1

0

0.00

0

0

0%

0

40

Setoguchi

6

4

0.67

4

3

67%

1

44

Bogosian

3

1

0.33

1

0

33%

0

55

Scheifele

3

2

0.67

1

2

33%

0

67

Frolik

3

3

1.00

2

1

67%

1

TEAM

58

30

0.52

26

17

45%

4

OPP

69

38

0.55

29

30

42%

2

OZF

15

7

0.47

DZF

15

3

0.20

Observations

Similar to what we saw in the last couple games against Chicago, things start to change a little bit once a game gets out of hand. The main difference between the two was pretty clear though. While the Blackhawks zone entry numbers went down because they were in the Jets zone simply grinding out the game, the Jets numbers on Friday dropped because Nashville was spending a lot of time in their end. Nashville was able to pepper Pavelec with shots and greatly out-chanced the Jets, but the goalie stood strong to get the win.

Despite their continued success in regards to getting the puck down the ice, I thought the third line had a down game Friday night. They weren’t really able to create many opportunities for themselves and were often at the wrong end of a scoring chance.

The Little – Ladd – Wheeler line is back together, and once again we are seeing how Andrew carries that line (literally) when it comes to neutral zone play. As long as Bryan Little continues to score I can deal with that, but at some point they need to start really working better together.

Olli Jokinen has been playing like an Olli Jokinen that hasn’t been seen in years lately. That combined with the return of Evander Kane and the settling in from Devin Setoguchi has the Jets a pretty solid second line right now. I’m not sure how sustainable this is and I don’t think these current lines are the best they can be long term, but if they can all get it together on some sort of regular basis the Jets can at least compete with these Western teams.

I like that Buff has been carrying the puck in and becoming more of an offensive threat lately. If that is going to continue though, he needs to get back to playing with Enstrom. Grant Clitsome is simply not a good enough defenseman to cover when those rushes go south.

Pavelec Performance

If this is what the fear of loosing his job does to Ondrej Pavelec, I say that’s more reason to start Montoya more often. Pavelec had his best game in a long on Friday, and I would be stupid to not give him credit for this win. My only complaint is how Claude Noel is going to react to this. We already heard today that Claude now believes the same goalie who was benched a week ago “provides consistently good goaltending”, which tells me we won’t see Monty for a while. I really hope he was joking.

Things to Watch For

The Jets match up against a Sharks team tonight that has been absolutely dominant thus far this season. Here are some things to watch for, as the boys take on one of the leagues best:

How will Pavelec play? The Sharks are one of the best puck possession teams in the league, meaning Pavelec is likely to see a lot of rubber again tonight. In the past, Pav has shown he can string one or two great games together between his usual sub-par play. He will need to do that tonight for the Jets to win.

Can the Jets limit the damage on the power play? Expecting goals from the Jets power play has pretty much become a lost cause. At this point, I’m just hoping they can avoid losing any and all momentum they usually generate before they go on said power plays. A little bit of zonetime and maybe a chance or two is all I’m asking for now.

Will Joe Thornton score four goals? If the Sharks blow out the Jets tonight, I hope Joe Thornton scores four goals. I really think we all want that to happen.

Final Thought

I said that if the Jets lost the game Friday night, that I had a feeling we would have seen the last of Claude Noel. With that big win, I think the coach has probably bought himself a little bit of time to try to turn things around. A win against the Sharks would go a long way in helping him make his case to be here. A loss, and the pitchforks will come right back out.